In the world of sports, there’s no hesitation in calling out a player that isn’t playing up to their potential. That’s the nature of this public-facing, money-making game.
The same standard needs to be applied to organizations.
Specifically, it needs to be applied to the San Francisco Giants organization, which is woefully underperforming compared to its potential.
And even when the organization appeared ready to break that mold this offseason, they bungled it all in catastrophic fashion and reverted right back to the mean.
This organization has grown comfortable with mediocrity and runner-up finishes. It wanted to lock in a decent floor — steady performance and revenue. The problem is, in doing that, it has now also locked in a low ceiling.
If the rising tide of overall baseball revenue lifts all ships, the Giants are happy to be along for the ride; too scared to do anything of real note, but content with doing just enough to look respectable compared to some of the worst-run teams in professional sports.
This is who the Giants are now: A big-market, big-money team that, when you get down to brass tacks, wants to be the Minnesota Twins.
And for its next trick, the Giants organization will pretend that signing Michael Conforto and Taylor Rogers matters.
It doesn’t make up for the Giants’ loss — or rejection — of Carlos Correa. Not even close.
No, Conforto, whom the Giants reportedly agreed to terms with on Friday (gotta be careful about saying “signed”), is just a manifestation of the Giants’ business as usual.
Don’t get me wrong, Conforto is a nice player. He had an excellent stretch for the Mets between 2017 and 2019. But that might as well be ancient history — B.P.
Conforto is coming to San Francisco because the Giants are now seen throughout baseball as a stepping stone.
Correa might have changed that, but Correa is set to be a Met.
Look at the Giants’ offseason: their players are guys who already live in the Bay Area (Mitch Haniger, Sean Manaea), dudes with familial ties (Taylor Rogers, brother of Tyler, also reportedly agreed to a three-year deal with the Giants Friday), and former stars who want to use the Giants for a year to boost their value before becoming free agents again (Conforto).
It’s been like that since Farhan Zaidi took over. A lot of things have moved, but nothing has truly changed.
Zaidi is the one who is going to take the blame for all of this, and that is just, but the Giants lacking the mettle to play in the true big leagues is an overall organizational issue.
Why take risks when you can guarantee mediocrity year after year?
That’s so much easier.
The Giants are the 28th most valuable sports organization in the world, per Forbes. They’re more valuable than the French soccer giant Paris Saint-Germain, which rosters Leo Messi and Kylian Mbappé.
San Francisco’s Messi and Mbappé are Thairo Estrada and Mike Yastrzemski (a player who would be practically anonymous if not for his last name).
Totally the same, right?
Yes, after five years of Zaidi in charge, those are the Giants’ two best position players, per FanGraphs 2023 projections. They’re both slightly above league average.
Conforto, in an optimistic future, is also a slightly above-average player in 2023 — think a slash line of .255/345/.440 slugging percentage.
Those are roughly the same numbers Ian Happ put up last season.
I’ll give you a moment to look up who Ian Happ is.
Of course, if that optimistic future comes to pass, Conforto’s future seasons will be played somewhere else. Like Kevin Gausman and Carlos Rodón before him, Conforto is looking for the Giants to fix him (he missed all of 2022 with a shoulder injury) so someone else can pay him this time next year.
After selling season tickets on a photoshopped image of Correa in a black Giants uniform, they’re going to push one year of an Ian Happ-type player.
Yes, the toughest job in baseball might be in the Giants’ ticket office — there are over 600 private seat licenses for sale on the Giants’ website right now.
Countless more, I’m sure, are being shopped by more unofficial means.
Now, I don’t want to give you the impression that the Giants will be a bad team in 2023. No, they’ll be respectable among their peers — floating somewhere around .500.
But that’s all they’ll be. Ninety wins look like a pipe dream for this team. Division crowns, playoff runs, and playing in late October is off the table for this organization that was, less than a decade ago, the premier operation in the sport.
After all the hoopla of this offseason, the Giants remain willfully mediocre, happy to be used in the process.
And in this market, there’s nothing respectable about that.
